The mixing of genres is cool, and adds a unique twist to the play mechanics, but honestly, Midway would have been much more user-friendly had it been either an action game or a real-time strategy affair -- not both.

Shattered Memories gives you something to think about, even if you don't feel like you have direct control over how events transpire -- a result of the game's non-binary, open-ended decisions, both in how you play the game and in the "psychological profiles" you undergo.

The ability to find various items and combining them to create new items like lock picks and Molotov cocktails is an interesting aspect, too, though not as cool in practice as it sounds in theory.

Consider Polarium a killer robot sent back into the present to conquer your brain. Might as well enjoy the subjugation...for as long as it lasts, anyway.

At the top of the reserves list above Muto, Vexx, and some of the other borderline games, but there are more ambitious titles out there.

Worth a tour if you really loved the movie, but maybe less so if you've already played the hell out of Vice City. We can't really blame Scarface for the familiarity of the setting, but the fact remains that we've been here before.

Origins isn't bad at what it does, but what it does isn't very ambitious.

But ultimately, even though a lot of things about MUA2 aggravate me, the moment-to-moment gameplay of superheroes beating the crap out of robots/mutants/soldiers with fists, mystical hammers, repulsor rays, giant tongues, and what-have-you feels solid and enjoyable.

It turns out that War Front wants to do...something...online between missions, and because it can't do whatever that is, the game just crashes.

If instead you'd like a cup of real-time Warhammer that's like the Total War series' tactical battles -- only with magic, monsters, and that trademark "grim world" panache -- this is that game. To Warhammer hardcores, that might sound like nerfing. It's not.

It has some good plot points and character development. But the story's shortcomings show the trials a young studio endures as it learns to craft a tale.

You probably won't put too much alone time into the game, but TV Party's an enjoyable pick-up-and-play option if you can get few friends or family members on board.

Episode II offers hints of excellence, but few of them have anything to do with the gameplay.

Edited down to a tight package this could probably make a pretty good machinima feature (or Sci-Fi original motion picture for that matter). But as a game, it fails.

A notch better on the PC than Xbox, thanks to significantly better visuals, but that's still not enough to push these valorous men past the paces of the best military games of this season.

City Folk just seems like a huge missed opportunity - either that, or a lazy cash-in on Nintendo's newfound casual audience. If it's the former, they ought to just call it Wii Mortgage Payments.

Legends of Aranna isn't radically different! Who'd a thought an expansion pack would actually just expand the original game and be done with it!?!

Few developers have been able to master the horror aspects of games as well as Surreal has done in the two Suffering games thus far, and with a bit more balancing, this could have been a great current generation sendoff for players looking to move on to the next-generation terror of "F.E.A.R." and "Condemned."

The game's well-polished; it would have been hailed as revolutionary a few years ago, but now it's just another decent, 10-hour-long hop-n-bop to add to the pile.

Sadly, once the conceptual veneer peels away, you'll be left only with hollow rattle of an empty aerosol can.

Its core mechanics are sound, if inexpertly presented, and the further you advance into the story, the more the level designs open up.

Penumbra: Overture hits all the old notes like the Stones on their tenth farewell tour.

The upside is that Ultimate Match is based on the Dreamcast port of KOF '98, which gives you the option to replace the original backgrounds with new 3D backgrounds as well as customizing and saving individual color configurations for each character.

While Live 08 is definitely looking better in every respect (gameplay, graphics, and online), the series still needs more time in the gym.

With its massive song list and skill-based gameplay, Dance Dance Revolution is back and better than ever...Easily -- and by far -- the best game of "smash-the-arrows" in town.

It's difficult to ignore some of the more frustrating moments.

These are wonderful, terrible songs, all, and the SingStar team has selected a great cross-section of music.

But while King of Fighters 2002's old-school 2D graphics and 2003's 3D backgrounds may not win any visual awards, their fast-moving, hard-hitting gameplay more than makes up for it. Few games muster up the same sort of thrills that the KOF roster does.